Scientists Present A Pretty Convincing Argument For The Benefits of CBD

When leading scientists are willing to go on the record in a government hearing about the medicinal benefits of CBD, it’s time to start paying attention.

That’s exactly what happened when Nora D. Volkow, the Director of the National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA, part of the National Institutes of Health) went before the Senate Caucus on International Narcotics Control to push for more clinical trials to investigate the medicinal potential of cannabidiol.

In 2015, Ms. Volkow highlighted positive results from pre-clinical research that studied CBD’s efficacy in treating a wide variety of conditions, including seizures, tumors, anxiety, and substance abuse, as well as its ability to act as a neuroprotective, anti-inflammatory, and analgesic.

One CBD study showed patients with epilepsy experiencing a reduction in the frequency of their seizures. Another saw improvements in quality of life for individuals suffering from neurodegenerative diseases, such as Parkinson’s and MS. Multiple studies demonstrated that CBD was effective as an analgesic due to its potential to act as an anti-inflammatory.

While the results so far are encouraging, Ms. Volkow made it clear that more trials were necessary and the purpose of her testimony was to encourage the removal of any barriers to further scientific study.